False Echoes
by Beckon
Summary: Sanctuary Hills. The name sparks a wildfire of memories inside of his head. Elijah remembers the Vault-Tec representative mere minutes before the sirens, before the alarms, before the TV, and the screaming. [Bullet to the Head/Dual Sole Survivors!AU]
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: After working on Reaching and Wanting to Run and Letters and Survivors, I realized how much I ended up loving my SoSu characters Elijah and Luka. So I decided to give them their own AU sort of storyline to run off of for future stories. Tried out a new writing style with this one as well.**

 **(The story title was inspired by the Jimmy Buffet song of the same name, False Echoes.)**

* * *

He wakes.

Squints already closed eyes before he pulls them open and then blinks once at the unregistered light above. Blinks again and winces his eyes shut when the pain finally triggers, when his brain finally figures out what's wrong, when it figures out why his corneas feel like they're being melted. The light is blistering and hot and he feels the pain of it pull tight throughout his jaw.

It radiates, vibrates through bones.

It clatters around in his head, in his skull, like a loose ping-pong ball.

He groans- tries to remember what happened.

Tries to remember what he's been admitted for this time, what's happened to him now? His unit had just been deployed into a region well-known for being dangerous, for being violent- too many airstrikes, too much gunfire. There must've been a bomb or something that hit too close, but if he went down than so did others. The injured were his responsibility but he could barely feel his legs, barely feel much from the chest down.

It was just the shock, the adrenaline.

It would wear off.

...

No, they left that place behind them months ago.

Left it with a full unit, although with plenty of chemical burns and bullet wounds to go around.

Was it his leg?

The bullet still sounds loud in his ears, ringing like thunder, like a storm, locked inside of his head.

(God, his eyes are still burning!)

He breathes out.

Slow and steady, trying to keep himself calm.

His head is spinning nonstop; it feels like he can't breathe fast enough to control it, to slow it down.

A hand touches at his chest, firm and weighed, keeping him down, keeping him from sitting up. He would feel panic if he wasn't used to the technique himself; if he didn't use it every single time he was out on the battlefield. It doesn't feel right against his own chest though but only because he knows the motive behind it.

"Keep breathing." A voice speaks, firm but easy. "Keep calm."

Simple enough.

He doesn't attempt to open his eyes again- he learned his lesson the first time.

"Do you remember your name?"

His name?

He swallows a little hard, feels the aching tightness of his throat as though it hasn't been used in awhile. He tries to find his voice but it feels like it's hiding, tying itself into a knot at the base of his throat, making it hard to breathe. The words come out like wheezed breaths at first, low and hissing through his teeth, through the knot, but they do eventually come out.

They stumble across his dry tongue and even dryer lips.

"Eli... Elijah," he speaks, although he doesn't know how loud it comes out- doesn't even know if he's said it out loud at all.

"Elijah."

The name is repeated back to him.

And he nods, feeling some comfort in hearing his own name being spoken.

Feeling comfort in knowing that he's still alive somehow.

"Do you remember what happened to you?"

... He doesn't.

He doesn't even know if something did happen to him- but obviously something did. Or he wouldn't be here, wherever ' _here_ ' is.

His mind scrambles for an answer, trying to piece something together.

Knows how important an answer like that is.

Fingers curl into the bedding underneath him, taking it in small handfuls as he tests the warm feeling of movement slowly easing back into his body. The material of the bedding is a little coarse; it's not the thin, scratchy kind he was used to. It feels different but he can't put his finger on it- can't explain why it doesn't settle well with his hands. It doesn't matter though. Because he's getting the feeling back, he's getting his body back, and it feels good to be able to move again.

"Sniper," he whispers, certain that that much is correct.

There are a few muttered words.

The sound of papers being flipped somewhere- a medical chart maybe.

"A sniper?" the voice repeats- uncertainty in it now. "A sniper shot you in the head?"

Head?

Elijah gets enough control to tug the corners of his lips into a frown, feeling the subtle motion pull tight across his face. "Head?" he whispers in repeat. Fingers curl into the bedding beneath him once more before he convinces just one arm to move; it's all the strength that he can muster right now. His hand limply drags itself up along his chest until it locates his neck, his chin, his cheek, his temple.

He feels the brush of another hand trying to stop him but it's too late.

He can feel it.

He can feel the thick bandages around his head- feels the cold sweat, damp and sticky, on his skin.

"Oh God... Oh God, oh God..."

The words fall all too easily from his lips, stumbling and pouring their way out of him.

 _Oh God. Oh God. Oh God._

"Calm down, calm down."

He can't- it's impossible.

His fingers curl against the bandages and half his mind thinks to rip them off- to find the bullet wound, to find the cracked skull underneath. But he's not stupid. Elijah knows he doesn't even have the strength to do it, no matter how desperately he wants to. He gasps through the hard breaths in his lungs now, choking back hiccups from a convulsing diaphragm as his mind spins to remember- to grasp at something.

To grasp at nothing.

"Someone shot me," he spills, as though it is both new and old news.

As if it's not already a given.

Firm hands are grasping at his own now, pulling them away, jerking them back to his sides- holding him down. Elijah doesn't like the motion, doesn't like the motive, but he doesn't fight it; he knows that he can't anyways.

He stops, just barely, and sucks in a hard, deep breath.

Feels the way it drops like a stone into his lungs as he tries to calm himself.

 _Don't panic. Don't panic._

 _Don't. Panic._

Elijah once more convinces his eyes to open again, feels the burning, the pain all over again. The lights are too bright, there's nothing shielding him from them- not even the silhouette of the man, the doctor, trying to help him. The lights are directly above him; they're like the sun, like an interrogation spotlight- like a sniper's scope all over again. Like a burning light on the horizon that keeps flashing over and over again in his head but he doesn't know why.

Still he looks around.

He watches, tries to understand what's going on around him.

Nothing makes sense.

This isn't any hospital he's seen before- and God knows he's seen plenty in his time.

It looks and feels like he's on a gurney shoved into the corner of a stock room, shoved aside to be out of the way. There's hardly any curtains, hardly any privacy- let alone machines or IVs.

The man above him doesn't make sense either; he's barely dressed in any kind of scrubs or uniform that he's seen before.

"Who are you?" Elijah whispers, breath partly stilled in his cold swollen throat. "And where am I?"

The man sighs and releases the tense hold on his arms- seeing that it's not helping.

"I'm Knight-Captain Cade," he answers. "And you're on the Prydwen."

Prydwen?

Knight-Captain? (What kind of rank was that?)

"Rest assured, Elijah, you're safe with the Brotherhood."

* * *

Nothing makes sense.

People try to explain it to him but it doesn't click- it doesn't make sense.

(It's just not possible.)

Two hundred years isn't possible, no matter how it's written or explained.

Elijah stays in the medical wing, or at least that's what everyone here calls it; it's hardly medical, let alone a wing, but he doesn't argue. There are barely any walls and he can hear people walking about outside at any time of day. He hears the occasional murmurs and whispers that try, and fail, to be conceived by hushed voices; he feels them heavy against his back, against his shoulders- feels them like bullets inside of his head.

If what everyone is saying, if what everyone is telling him is true than he knows that they're talking about him.

He knows that they're amazed.

They're bewildered that a man found half-frozen with a bullet in his head survived two-hundred years underground in a badly sealed vault.

Like some kind of frozen dinner.

...

He's been treated for mild frostbite but there's still the lingering pain in his fingertips when he curls them. His skin still looks waxy on his hands and he can feel the same texture on his face- mainly on his cheeks and nose. Nothing severe but he remembers Cade remarking that it was a miracle he was pulled out with only a few spots of gray on his extremities. The words imply he should've had more, that the tissue layered under his skin should've been frozen solid- that he himself should've been frozen stiff in his own body.

Elijah tries to ignore the imagery but the lingering chill in his body plagues him with it again and again.

He can still feel the cold under his skin and he finds himself shivering underneath blankets even as his body sweats from the heat.

It has been a few days since he woke up here but he doesn't remember them. He doesn't know the time between days- if time is even passing in days. It could be passing in weeks for all he knows. The only time he's aware of what's going on is when Cade stirs him awake to take vitals and check in. The man hardly seems to leave the room, even when sleeping hours are called from the hallway outside. He's always on his computer, always writing things down.

And Elijah knows the feeling.

Doesn't remember exactly why but he knows there's a reason for the sense of familiarity.

His life revolves around waking to blur vision, staring at the ceiling or wall for a few seconds before passing back out again. His body is damaged in ways he can't understand right now, in ways his wounded head can't wrap itself around. All he can focus on is the pain, the dull throbbing behind his eyes.

All he can focus on is the scattered pieces of consciousness flowing in and out of web.

 _None of it connects._

 _None of it will ever connect._

* * *

"Elder Maxson wishes to speak with you," Knight-Captain Cade announces as he steps back into the medical room after having been absent for an hour or so. There's a stiff-look etched on his face and it's evident in his tone that there's no arguing the announcement. "He wanted to speak with you as soon as you woke up but I advised him that it would be in your best interest if he waited. As the lead medical officer on-board, your health comes before the Elder, but I feel that you're stable enough for conversation now."

Elijah can't help but to think how back-handed all of that sounded.

The man essentially stripped him of his right to say no and left no room for arguing it.

What kind of rank was Knight-Captain anyways?

And what kind of rank was Elder?

(He's in no mood for arguing though.)

(And he's been in this situation before anyways.)

Elijah barely shrugs in answer before Knight-Captain Cade steps out- and he's glad the man does as he rolls his eyes and shakes his head as best he can manage; it's a useless gesture but it makes him feel better. The pain has mostly subsided and he doesn't feel like death as he pushes himself into a semi-sitting up position. He knows moving at this stage is still risky but he has to- his back is practically numb and his hip is throbbing. His ribs hurt more than his head does at this point. He doesn't think he's in the running to develop bed sores but he doesn't trust Cade's word much these days.

(He doesn't know why but he just _doesn't_.)

He settles in as best he can and finds that the new position doesn't help much.

If anything it makes him look better than a heap of useless weight so it's not a complete loss.

Elijah looks up at the sound of footsteps and watches as another man steps in in place of Cade- and he surprises himself with the brief snort that escapes him; it both surprises and somewhat embarrasses him. It was a laugh that didn't quite escape but he can feel it churning in his chest as he looks at who he can only presume is the 'Elder'. The man's face, while covered in thick burly hair, resembles what would better be described as a baby face rather than an 'Elder' face- again, whatever kind of rank that was.

Elder implies experience; it implies countless hurdles that had been jumped through or run down.

This man looks as though he had just graduated from a frat party- and had stolen one of the finer coats from the closet on his way out.

(Elijah's near certain that he's older than this Elder.)

And it's the coat that really stands out.

It's unusual and bulky; it's certainly not one for battle either.

It's for show.

This man is like the figurehead at the front of a warship; all for show with no function.

But Elijah kicks himself for the assessment.

The man hasn't even spoken and he's already passed judgment, he's already made up his mind about him. As though his own experiences of a difficult childhood and complicated adulthood spent dealing with prejudice thrown at him wasn't enough to curb the jump to conclusions. (But then again, he and this man were not the same- and this was certainly not the same world Elijah had come from.)

"Knight-Captain Cade tells me that your name is Elijah," the man speaks; his voice is surprisingly smooth- a hint of youth still in his throat.

And again Elijah has to curb the urge to point it out- to laugh.

He doesn't know why it keeps itching in his throat but it does; the bullet threw the balance in his head for a loop, he can't figure out when what emotion should be used. He's lucky enough that he remembers how to laugh at all.

"The terminal from Vault 111 stated that your name was Elijah W. Mao."

His brow furrows this time, nailing the confused expression for once and Elijah feels the corners of his lips tug once more. "Vault 111?" he repeats, unsure of where such a name would come from. It doesn't ring a bell to him. He's heard people mention a vault before but it had always been a place, a sort of room far away from here. He never lingers on it passed that but now... now it feels real. Now it feels like it's here, right in front of him- feels like the very room that he's in right now.

"I've read the field reports on the matter but Scribe Haylen would be best to fill you in," Elder Maxson speaks.

And the man steps aside to allow for a red-headed woman to step inside of the small room next.

Even with just three people it feels like the room is overcrowded- like there is too little space to be had.

(It feels like his breathing room has been cut into.)

The woman's dressed in yet another uniform that Elijah doesn't recognize. It reminds him of the military, pre-way apparently, but he knew the uniforms back then; these ones he doesn't. It looks like the right fit for ground combat but he doesn't recognize the title of Scribe. It's like the military re-branded itself and decided to start over on ranks- and it was confusing the hell out of him.

The woman, Scribe Haylen he can only presume, gives what looks to be a smile of relief- short and small just before she casts it aside.

(Elijah can't understand why she'd be relieved to see him though.)

"I'm glad to see that you're awake," she starts and there's even relief to be heard in her voice. "I did what I could on-site but even then I wasn't certain if you would survive the trip or not. You were... in a very questionable and unknown condition- one that neither myself nor my team knew how to handle. But I'm glad to see that we handled it well enough to keep you alive until Knight-Captain Cade could pull you through."

He doesn't know her or even knows what she's talking about.

Through context he can only assume that she was the one who found him.

"Who-" Elijah starts and then stops, unsure of where to go with the word, with the sentence, with the question.

His mind blanks out on him a lot now; it can't seem to function through still-frozen circuitry.

"I was the one who found you," she answers carefully, and while it confirms that he was right in that assumption, it still answers nothing for him.

"Where?"

He's heard the answer a dozen times but still it doesn't click.

"Vault 111," Haylen replies, giving the same answer from seconds before. She seems to notice his hesitant look and elaborates as best she can. "It was a pre-war vault just to the West of here. You and everyone in there were in these odd-looking pods. I did some further research into the vault and..." she stops and passes a look to the Elder, who seems to nod for her to continue. "And from what I had gathered, Vault-Tec was apparently using Vault 111 to study the affects of long-term cryogenic-suspended animation on unsuspecting subjects." She stops again and perhaps in her own moment of clarity realized that the answer was no good to him. "In layman's terms, they were freezing people to see what would happen."

Elijah was almost certain that the words coming out of her mouth weren't real words.

They sound jumbled and incoherent to him- muffled and sluggish as they went through one ear and out the other.

He tries to make sense of them, he does... but he can't.

"Vault-Tec was in the Capital Wasteland as well," Elder Maxson adds. "They are notorious for painting themselves to be saviors in the eye of nuclear warfare. Of the vaults that we have encountered, none of them spared the inhabitants inside. None of them held to the promise of protection that they sold to the people."

"Despite these inhuman experiments, it would explain why you were able to survive for so long through post-nuclear radiation," Haylen finishes.

It's too much information at once.

A sensory overload.

He's barely recovering from a bullet in his head and now they want to tell him all of this?

"Where?" is the only word Elijah can muster out.

Scribe Haylen seems relieved once more- as though him responding is enough of a good sign to bank on. "Vault 111 was on a hilltop overlooking a place called Sanctuary Hills," she answers, and there's perhaps hope in her tone that the information would further jog his memory on it.

And it does.

And it _clicks_.

Sanctuary Hills.

The name sparks a wildfire of memories inside of his head.

Elijah remembers the Vault-Tec representative mere minutes before the sirens, before the alarms, before the TV, and the screaming.

He remembers the calm morning before all of that- remembers playfully fighting his wife, Luka, for the shower, fighting for the first cup of coffee. He remembers the feeling of cold feet pressed against his back, waking him up before his alarm; he remembers Luka's quiet laugh following his surprised squeal, a laugh that told him she had done it on purpose. He remembers half-memorized words still being written although already folded away in the pocket of his jacket, which was hanging and waiting to be worn for the ceremony that night.

(It was Luka's ceremony but he was the one bringing her out on stage.)

He remembers the weight of blankets in his arms, a blurry face staring back at him as he lifted the weight from the crib.

"My wife," Elijah stammers out, "my son-"

There is a face the woman, that Haylen makes.

Like she wants him to remember the Vault, to remember waking up.

But she doesn't want him to remember that, doesn't want him to remember the other people inside, locked and freezing with him.

"I'm sorry but... you were the only survivor," Haylen speaks, and it's clear in her voice that she didn't want to be the one to break the news; it's also clear that this isn't the first time she has done this. There is sympathy in her voice.

The words ring dull in his chest, pounding away inside of him like a broken bell.

(Like a bullet.)

"No, no, there... they have to be..." the words spill, stumbling and caught broken on his lips.

They never finish.

He wants to believe, wants to know that they're okay, that this isn't the real future.

"I'm sorry," she repeats.

"Why would I believe you?!" the words spit out of Elijah before he can even think straight. He doesn't want to believe that Luka's gone, that this son is gone- he can't believe it. There's no reason for them to be. They were all in the Vault together, they were all there! How could he be the only one who walked away alive? "How the hell can I even trust you?!"

The people, whoever they are, have no reason to lie but Elijah doesn't know them.

He doesn't know the Brotherhood, or Cade, or Haylen, or the Elder.

He can't be expected to just take their word.

 _It's not fair._

* * *

Elijah doesn't remember much after that.

He remembers the anger, the breaking down...

It was too much information, too much pain at one time- part of him doesn't believe the information but part of him feels like he already knew that they were gone.

After all, how many people can just survive two hundred years of radiation without damage?

He's an abnormality in statistics; he's the odd man out.

There was anger but he remembers the heavy wrecking sobs more.

Remembers the cold realization of having lost the two most important people in his life, remembers the flood of emotions it pours through him; his wounded body, wounded psyche couldn't hold up under the weight, under the pressure.

Elijah doesn't know if he passed out from his own anxiety or from the administered sedative that he didn't fight.

He just knows that he wakes up to the low hum of the lights above him, to the lack of whispers and heavy footsteps outside- to the lack of Cade at his computer. He wakes up with heavy eyelids and a heavier body, with only one thought to cross his mind.

 _She's gone._

Luka.

His wife, his anchor, the woman he vowed to love, to protect, to hold through sickness and health.

She's just... gone.

The thought pounds bitterly inside of his chest, reminding him again and again that she's not going to rush into this very room to see him. That she's not going to grab at him, fingers just as desperate as his, and ask again and again if he's okay. That she's not going to be here to deny the tears in her eyes, even when they're hot and welling up and spilling down her cheeks.

Elijah doesn't know how long he lies there staring at the ceiling, doesn't know if it's for hours or for days at a time.

His head still pounds from the bullet, throbbing hard behind his eyes; sometimes it hurts too much to open them. But now he feels the painful jerk in his chest as it seizes up from time to time, like there's the weight of a boulder settling on his diaphragm. It feels like he can only breathe in hard gasps now- no matter how hard he tries to calm himself down.

He doesn't know where he is or what he's doing here, but now he knows that he's completely alone in all of it.

And it burns him from the inside; it rips and tears into him like another bullet.

When Cade talks to him, he barely listens.

(He doesn't care to know if his health is declining or not.)

He even skips answering the man's questions during his routine check-up and the cleaning of bandages; he doesn't wince any more when Cade cleans the thin line of staples along the side of his scalp.

...

Shaun's gone too.

His beautiful baby boy...

Elijah breathes in hard, lets it stammer out between his lips as he closes his eyes again.

* * *

 _"It was a high-powered round. It shattered your tibia and fibular beyond repair- it practically blew half of your calf out to begin with. This wasn't an easy decision but it was the right one I can assure you. You can look over the chart yourself if you'd like but I think you already see where I'm coming from. Do not worry, there are plenty of soldiers who come through here with these sorts of injuries. And just like them, in a few months time, you'll be fitted with a prosthetic and have rehabilitation therapy. Within the year, you might even be back out on the field again."_

 _If the words were supposed to be of any comfort, they weren't._

 _But Elijah understands them regardless._

 _Understands that he doesn't need to see the chart to prove the doctor's point._

 _Still, the words don't take any of the pain away._

 _They don't take out the itching of the staples currently keeping what was left of his right leg together. A below-the-knee amputation wasn't the worst thing that could've happened to him (he's still alive after all) but he can feel the way his kneecap locks up, feels the painful tingling in a leg that's no longer there. The dripping IV of morphine next to him does little to help the agony._

 _He tells himself that it'll pass, that the first night will always be the worst._

 _It'll get better._

 _But this is the first night and right now it hurts and it feels like it's killing him from the inside._

 _His ribs pull tight in agony and throb with the bullet that passed through them; he was lucky in that that bullet was a mostly empty shot. The bullet didn't hit anything important on the way in or out, but it did crack a rib or two in the process. Nothing worrisome enough to fear a pierced organ of some kind but it still hurts. It doesn't help either that the bullet made a messy exit and his chest was burning from the skin pulled tight with more staples._

 _It feels like the bullet hit his lungs instead; it feels like he can't breathe like this, can't breathe on his back. His bed had been lifted to sit at a slight incline to help, to pull the swelling away from his chest, but it doesn't offer him any ease._

 _Fingers cling to the thin hospital gown, feeling the cold chill shivering in his bones._

 _Elijah can hear his teeth chattering, painfully rocking against each other._

 _He's lost track of time already but it feels like he's been stuck in this bed for days- months even._

 _(Transport from the kill site was hell.)_

 _He's gone through two bags of morphine already and it still hurts._

 _"So what are you in for?"_

 _The question was enough to stir his attention elsewhere, drawing Elijah to the second voice in the room. He hadn't been aware that there was someone else here- that he wasn't alone. It makes sense; the hospital was packed enough as it was and sharing rooms with a stranger wasn't an uncommon practice. His room buddy probably had one foot out the door anyways so bunking up for one night wouldn't be an issue for them._

 _Elijah swallows hard, fighting through the knot that was pushing itself down his throat; he can't remember the last time he used his voice to speak rather than scream. "I- I took two sniper rounds," he starts, unsure if he's even speaking loud enough for anyone to hear him. He pauses, regains his breath, and continues. "Lost a leg, cracked a couple of ribs."_

 _"Shit."_

 _It's a response he's not certain the other person wanted him to hear._

 _"I uh... I'm sorry to hear that."_

 _He nods even though he knows they can't see him with the curtain pulled between them. "You?" he tries harder to use his voice this time._

 _"Malaria." A simple answer. "Been stuck in here for like two weeks now, just got out of quarantine. I'm clean now but God did that shit get me fucked up."_

 _Elijah manages a half-hearted chuckle, figuring their shared pain was something they could relate on. "Yeah... Malaria... Malaria does that."_

 _"No joke," the other voice snorts. "I was in the I.C.U. thinking there were Congo birds after me. I was like fighting them off and more of them kept showing up- I ended up punching the doctor and a nurse and then proceeded to rip all of my IV's out before anyone could stop me. Needless to say, I got sedated and my fever medication dosage was doubled."_

 _He manages a stronger laugh this time, although it rattles like rocks against his ribs._

 _It both hurts but feels good to laugh- the imagery alone is worth the pain._

 _There was a pause in conversation._

 _A moment lost to silence_

 _"You alright?"_

 _Hesitation on his behalf._

 _"No," Elijah answers truthfully, shivering still against the stagnant air in the room. The aching of his kneecap has spread up through his thigh and has latched onto his hip, making it hurt simply with the way it laid against the bed. But he couldn't move it- everything else hurt worse._

 _He closes his eyes and tries to imagine how he's going to sleep- definitely not tonight or maybe even the next day. Would he end up going crazy from the lack of sleep? Or would he be forced to be put under every few days just to get enough to function off of._

 _(No, he's just overreacting.)_

 _Elijah doesn't hear the padded footsteps until they've stopped at the thin curtain between them. He can barely see the silhouette of someone on the other side, the slight crumpling of the curtain caught between fingers._

 _"Do you... do you mind if I come in?"_

 _The question spurs odd but he's barely in his right mind to consider it._

 _"No."_

 _Hesitation, before the curtains are pulled back enough to allow entry- and then quickly pulled back into place._

 _Elijah sees her for the first time, cast in shadow, cast in the dim light from the hallway. Whoever this woman is, she's dressed in loose clothing, no hospital gown- hinting at her extended stay here. There are thin bandages around her arms, right at the cuff of her elbow- probably from the whole tearing-the-IV-needles-out-of-her-skin. He can't see her face all that well but it hardly matters._

 _She breathes out, heavy in her own right, before she moves to his bedside, before she climbs in next to him. It doesn't seem like there's much space for her, but she hardly takes up any. He wonders if her clothing was loose to begin with or if the bout of Malaria had stolen the weight off of her bones. She slides in next to him, lying on top of the blanket, and Elijah can feel the heat radiating off of her skin._

 _There are no words._

 _He just feels her presence next to him, feels the loose weight of her arm draping itself over him- finds comfort in loose fingers half-curled against his arm._


	2. Chapter 2

Grief is a slow process.

It runs through his body like molasses, like a poison.

It coats everything he is, everything he _was_.

But Elijah gets it.

He knows he can't spend the rest of his life like this- heavy and bedridden more out of grief than physical pain.

He knows the crushing feeling all too well; they've been acquaintances before. He still feels the weight of a dozen lost friends on his shoulders, remembers pushing through it on two feet with tears in his eyes and rocks in his gut. It's not easy, it's never easy, and no matter how many times he goes through it, it never gets easier. And if anyone says otherwise, they're fucking lying.

He can do it though.

He has to.

It's a slow process.

But there will always be time.

Recovery kicks in just as slow, just as consuming, but there is relief in the heaviness that comes with that.

There is relief when the bandages finally come off and Elijah no longer feels the vertigo in his head when he sits up. There is relief when he no longer feels overcome with nausea, when he no longer loses half of his senses when he's sitting upright; his back and hips still ache but he knows that the pain will go away in due time. The partially-shaved skin along the side of his head itches and pulls around the sutures, around re-growing hairs, but despite its annoyance, it too is part of the process.

Elijah doesn't like the uneven cut of his hair but he's glad that Cade didn't shave his head entirely. He hated how he looked with a buzzcut and took every opportunity he could to grow his hair out- just skirting it above regulation. And when he finally stepped away from the military, finishing his time on the battle front, he grew it out even further. His fingers can still run through the long, shoulder-length strands thankfully- although he exhausted himself by brushing out the knots and mats that had formed from lying on it for so long. It's still long enough that he can easily comb it over the shaved portion without anyone noticing, without it looking odd.

But he'll wait until the sutures come out, when the wound is closed enough to reject infection.

For now though, he pulls the long strands away from the still-tender wound and ties them back on his own.

When things are better and he doesn't get exhausted by the simplest of actions, he'll put proper work into tying it- but for now he'll make due.

(The lights no longer hurt his eyes either- and it's that that he's most glad for.)

Elijah doesn't know exactly how long he's been here, how long he's been defrosted. It's been a few weeks already, at best guess, of slow healing, of slowly getting his strength back in working order. He can still recount old memories, still pull knowledge from pre-war times. His body still moves the way it should; he can bend and flex his fingers, he can still write, read, and understand text.

He knows he's lucky.

There are still black spots now and again when he stresses himself but he is lucky.

He's a special case on the Prydwen, in most of the remaining Commonwealth it seemed, but when he's finally well enough to move out, he moves out.

Elijah knows what it's like to rotate patients around after all- and he won't get better if he just stays in the same place all the time. Cade is the one who speaks first about it and then seems surprised when Elijah agrees; he's tired of sitting around with Cade as company anyways. It might not be any better outside of this medical storage room but as long as he's away from Cade, he'll be fine.

So he moves out of the medical closet and out into the general population of the flying airship; his rare presence is still enough to earn him a small secluded corner to himself however. It's a simple bed with three curtains pulled around it for makeshift walls but it is better than nothing; he has slept in worse rooms after all- actually in no rooms as well. It's a step in the right direction...

He still doesn't know how he's going to fit in around here, how he's going to be of any use to any of these people.

Pre-war knowledge, pre-war skills maybe.

He's a combat medic and he is in no condition for combat right now.

Sitting around makes him feel tense and useless.

It's a feeling he has battled with before and won.

But there is never a guaranteed second win.

The Prydwen, this hunk of metal that flew as an excuse for an airship, was bigger than Elijah that it was. It was bigger outside of the medical bay, out where he can see how things move and function on a day to day basis. It's filled with all sorts of soldiers and people, all contributing their own way to this Brotherhood. Their insistent chanting, their insistent 'brother' talk is quick to crawl under his skin but Elijah deals with it.

(It's no different from the military.)

There are no civilians on-board but there are children and Elijah admits that it makes him worried.

He has seen war in the most desolate of places.

He has seen guns held in the hands of children.

Two hundred years in the future and it would seem as though things have still not changed. (Things have not gotten better.)

Elijah sits on the bed, rubs one hand over the partial stump of his right leg. It aches from lying still for so long, it aches from the lack of proper exercise. His prosthetic sits next to the bedside, thankfully recovered and maintained by the medical staff on-board- or rather, the scientific staff. Cade claims that it was a woman by the name of Neriah who ensured that the leg had taken no damage during his emergency ride here; that the prosthetic remained in proper working order, just as it had been two hundred years ago.

He wants to walk on it again; he's tired of being bedridden.

But his body still aches, his energy is still being recovered...

Maybe another day.

Elijah feels a cold chill wash over him as he hears familiar, hulking footsteps shaking the metal floorboard under his foot and looks up in time to see a suit of Power Armor walk by; it's hefty frame is just barely visible through the thin space between the hanging curtains of his makeshift room. The chill burns him down to his fingertips as he hears the footsteps still heavy but dying off in the distance.

He had gone to war with Power Armor before.

Not again.

 _Not again._

* * *

He's unstable on his leg when he finally attempts to walk on it.

It feels like he's learning to walk on his prosthetic all over again.

The movement hurts in his hips and knee but against better judgement Elijah pushes through it. It's just the passing time, the centuries spent frozen that have caused his kneecap to lock up at the idea of support, at the idea of balancing; it makes the prosthetic hurt more than it should. Nothing has changed between the finalized fitting to now (asides from the obvious anyways) so it should still be fine.

There will be a little swelling when he's done, a little skin irritation, but he knows what his limits are; he knows what he can push, what he can risk.

Each step is a little easier than the last.

It doesn't help that the uniform he's been given is tight; the flexible material clings to every part of his body, to every little movement- and it shows off far more than he's willing to talk about. Elijah has to roll the pants leg up in order to get his prosthetic to fit and even then he can feel it practically cutting off circulation to his knee. It makes the skin swell a little, makes it feel tighter in the socket- not exactly a good combination.

If the Brotherhood is the closest thing to a military in this day and age than their uniforms are far off scale; his old military garbs never clung or felt as though they were glued to him like this. Perhaps it made sense when operating a suit of Power Armor but he was clearly not operating a suit- he was in no need for the flight dress.

He should be more worried about his still-raw head wound, his still weak body, and misplaced brain, and yet Elijah finds himself worried more over the uniform. Worried over the way it clings to his knees and up his thighs, cradling a little tighter to his groin than he's willing to admit to. To put it bluntly, he had always been above-average in terms of 'size' but the tight fit of the uniform against his groin only makes it seem bigger.

And he is too embarrassed to admit that he's caught the occasional stares from the other soldiers looking at him- eyes pointedly looking below the waist. At this point there is little that he can do but pretend that he doesn't notice them.

(He wishes Luka was here to observe and assist; he wouldn't even think to wear jeans out of the house without getting her approval first.)

But better this uniform than the vault suit he was buried in.

"Careful," a woman, Senior Scribe Neriah advises, as she keeps a close distance.

(Another Scribe.)

Neriah keeps to her working space, keeps contained to the gurneys she has surrounding her- to the bodies she has vivisected and dissected around her. An odd habit but Elijah remembers in the briefing what had been said about her; she's a researcher- her job isn't glamorous but it's necessary, it's smart.

 _"She's going to do wonders for the Commonwealth with blood up to her elbows."_

Elijah feels the way she watches him from the corner of her eye at times and knows that she had been advised to keep a watch on him. It is annoying and part of him argues that he's not a child. But he's a frozen man found with a bullet in his head and even he knows that sometimes something feels off, that something feels wrong. He is a special case and he can't be allowed to just walk off.

But Neriah gives him his space and doesn't talk much and that alone is enough to earn his gratitude.

Elijah groans a little and steadies himself with the railing once more- ignoring how the metal plating underfoot feels like it's slipping out from under him. He gathers his balance, allows himself to let go of the railing and tests his faith on his footing alone. It feels like his joints are frozen still; they hurt and throb hot with every movement. He feels pain in a limb that's no longer there, that hasn't been there in over two hundred years.

He feels a wave of nausea flood him for a second when he leans too far forward- feels the thundering in his head that has him reaching for the railing again.

It's barely two steps forward but it is still progress.

* * *

When Elijah gains his footing and balance, and a little more confidence, he pushes himself to walk and explore more.

Not out of curiosity but out of practice alone.

There is nothing here that interests him- not by much anyways.

He finds it surprisingly easy to stay out of the way of the Brotherhood soldiers. Most of them are so focused on what they're doing that they hardly even look at him- they just barely side-step every time he's around. And it doesn't bother him in the slightest. Elijah doesn't wish to speak to any of them anyways- although it is difficult to avoid the way some of the soldiers stare at him as they pass by.

He is like an unmarked relic they managed to dig up themselves.

The freedom to walk is nice and it allows him to explore things he always had questions about.

"Is there something you need?"

"No, I was just... curious about what it is you do," Elijah answers, watching as Neriah pauses in her work.

She is indeed up to her elbows in blood, arms buried in the carcass of some... rather sizable creature tied down on the gurney in front of her. There was an interesting work of tubes and buckets below that allowed the blood to drain down, sparing not a single drop to touch the metal floorboards. He has been watching her collect some of the blood in glass tubes which she would set aside onto a holding tray; she had a small collection of blood-filled tubes already.

"If you're busy though-"

"I've done this a dozen times this month, you aren't interrupting anything," Neriah assures and even gestures for him to step into her makeshift work area. "I hope you don't have a weak stomach."

"Far from it," he replies as he cautiously takes her invite and steps around the other gurneys holding a variety of other bodies. He doesn't recognize any of them as any species of anything that he knows- but he still feels the discomfort at acknowledging that, at their core, they are human-like. Its a wonder they don't smell in the tight, stagnant confines of the Prydwen. "What are all of these... things?"

Neriah points a bloodied hand at the gurney behind him and lists each one out in a clockwise manner, going from gurney to gurney. "Feral ghoul, domestic ghoul, Gen-1 Synth, Gen-2 Synth," her hand gestures to the dissected body in front of her, "Super Mutant."

Elijah only recognizes the last name.

"Super Mutant?" he repeats.

"They're the result of humans being infected with FEV," Neriah explains as she continues about her business. "The Forced-"

"Evolutionary Virus," Elijah finishes, and it's probably the first thing he's said so far that's actually caught the woman's attention. "The military was using it on animals and hoping it would be a cure to radiation- at least, that was the cover story to it, I think. We used it to try and make super soldiers for the war, hoping to gain an edge over the Chinese. Last I heard there was a huge controversy at the Mariposa Military Base in California over illegal human testing but... that story broke only a couple days before the bombs dropped. I didn't... I didn't think it would survive."

Neriah has a notebook in hand now, scribbling down notes, scribbling down whatever it was that he had said.

"You know, for a man who took a bullet to the head, you have great memory," she remarks, absent-mindedly perhaps; it's only after a few scribbles does it seem to dawn on her that maybe it wasn't the right thing to say. "Your memories mean a great deal to me though- I've been studying the effects of radiation on these creatures and studying their blood, seeing how they break radiation down. I'm trying to create a better cure for it. We have Rad-Aways, which will take some of the radiation off but... it's not enough. We need heavier dosages for when we send our men out into these radiation zones. The Glowing Sea for instance, we can't even risk touching it right now. The Power Armor helps but so much as a crack in the seals will cause one of our men to be boiled alive in it."

Elijah continues to stare at the dissected body in front of her- taking in the details of the horribly mutated form. "So... this is what happens? This is what our Super Soldiers would've looked like?"

"A variation of one, yes," Neriah nods. "From my studies so far, I've been able to locate three distinctive FEV labs where Super Mutants might've originated from. It's hard to say for certain as over time the Super Mutants spread out and formed their own FEV lines, but some things stay the same. There was a lab out in California, perhaps the one you had mentioned; there was a lab in the Capital Wasteland, where we came from- and now I've realized that there's a lab here, in the Commowealth as well."

"How do you figure?" Elijah questions.

"Because I've dissected one from each region and they're all different- my notes don't match up," she answers. "It's a different strand, a different virus, maybe a reaction to the environment around them, I'm not certain. But the ones here in the Commonwealth... they're very unique. This doesn't feel like the real FEV. I think it's a synthetic one, a fake."

"Is that possible?"

"Hard to say, I've never run into one," Neriah admits. "But hopefully with each body I'll get closer to the answer."

Elijah nods, unsure of what else to say. Neriah knows what she's talking about it; he's certain that she'll find what she's looking for. "Uh what uh... what about these other bodies, what did you say they were?"

"Feral ghouls are people who were exposed to massive amounts of radiation at once which cause their brains to decay into mush," Neriah explains. "Domestic ghouls are people who were exposed to radiation over time and began to show symptoms of radiation poisoning; it explains the skin, lack of hair, and overall physical deformity. They retain full brain functions but it has been observed that domestic ghouls will eventually decay into feral ones. That's why it's best to just shoot them on sight. Now because of enhanced radiation exposure, ghouls have been observed living for long periods of time. Some are even from the pre-war era, like you."

The explanation chills Elijah down to the core.

Radiation poisoning was no joke- he had seen his share of it before.

But to think that some people grew to adapt to it?

"That's why we were so surprised to find out that you were pre-war," Neriah continues. "You should've been looking like either of those two creatures over there but... you're not. Guess it's a good thing that pod was sealed as tight as it was."

He doesn't want to think about it.

Not here, not now.

"The Synths are... still a work in progress," Neriah speaks, continuing on with her explanations. "There's something here called the Institute. It's an unknown organization that's been kidnapping and killing people- terrorizing the Commonwealth. It's the main reason the Brotherhood set down anchor here. We have to protect the people and keep this thing from getting out of control. Now the Institute specializes in creating Synths- synthetic human beings. The two over there are clearly the prototype versions; we're looking for Gen-3's. They're near identical to a human being and have little to no physical attributes setting them apart. Frankly to say, you wouldn't know one even if it was talking to you. And because of this clever camouflage, they're the biggest threat we have right now, which is why we need to crack the code on them as soon as we can."

Elijah doesn't even bother to try and understand a word Neriah has said.

He lost her just as soon as she started talking.

But he gives a nod of acknowledgment when she looks up at him.

"Tell me, Elijah, what did you do before the bombs were dropped?" she asks out of the blue.

"I was a Combat Medic for the U.S. military," he answers.

"Interesting. I have a feeling you'll fit into the Brotherhood just fine."

Elijah's not certain that he even wants to.

But he's also not certain if he has a choice.

* * *

Elijah finds most of the Brotherhood soldiers too brash to understand, to connect to.

They make too much noise when they walk, when they yell across the Prydwen at each other from time to time- always when he's trying to rest and catch some extra hours of sleep. Always when his head is ringing and he feels like he's going to puke at any moment.

He does his best to avoid most of them when he has the energy to walk around. He's not exactly looking to play nice right now although he figures he'll be around here for longer than he wishes.

Where else is he to go after all?

The world he knew had ended two centuries before and this was all that was left.

He has no survival skills outside of non-radiated lands.

That is not to say that the Brotherhood is unsalvageable.

There are some soldiers he can tolerate, some he even likes being around.

Neriah is smart and speaks without a filter; Elijah enjoys listening to her, watching her work, learning more and more about the new world through her notes and studies. None of it makes sense right now but in due time it might.

Proctor Ingram is another.

Elijah watches the woman as she moves around on metal legs that are nothing like his own.

Instead of prosthetics, Ingram has a metal frame wrapped around her body- a Power Armor frame. And Elijah has seen those frames plenty enough before to realize just how ingenious the set-up is. The frame was useful even without the armor, without it being on the battle front. He had witnessed at least one empty frame in every work station- always set aside in case of emergency heavy lifting.

It is impractical but it does the job.

Ingram can move around on her own; she can walk and work still- although she lacks a significant amount of flexibility.

But she is steady, strong, and unforgiving with her footsteps.

Elijah knows when she's around simply by the movement of the paneling under his feet.

Their conditions are radically different from each other- hell Elijah can't even imagine losing a limb in this kind of environment. Just the same though, no one else could seem to imagine surviving a head wound either. Elijah's not convinced that he's completely survived it either; there is still room for internal bleeding, for infection, for pressure to sink in and take over, killing him in seconds, in his sleep even.

Unrelated however.

Still, Ingram is someone that he feels he can relate to in some sense.

"Doing better today?" Ingram asks as she moves a new shipment of scavenged tools closer to her work station. She's fixing the prototype jetpack on one of the older Power Armor suits; the initial flight test didn't go so well- both spring joints in the knees broke upon landing. Thankfully no one was hurt.

Elijah used to hang out with the engineering crew a few times on base.

He always found them to be an entertaining, although erratic bunch. They always had good stories to tell though.

(It makes understanding Proctor Ingram's work a little easier.)

"You look better."

"Thanks," Elijah offers, seated in a chair that the Proctor had pulled from her pieced-together desk nearby; he isn't entirely certain that Ingram can even sit while in frame. His mild objections to the chair were heard as silence as the woman moved it anyways- citing that it's not his leg she's worried about but rather his head. And with no argument against that, Elijah concedes and sits down. "It still hurts a little when I walk but it's... it's been doable. Balance is a little shoddy but it's getting better too."

"That's good to hear," Ingram replies, pausing slightly as she walks by him; when she speaks again, she speaks in a voice of assurance. "You got used to it before, you can do it again."

He had, that much was true.

He didn't like it then and he sure as hell doesn't like it now.

* * *

 _Hands grasp nervously to the weighted bars underneath them, feeling the bars close to his hips, close to his sides- boxing him in._

 _Elijah knows that it's done like that on purpose. It's so he has stability, something to hold on to should he inevitable begin to fall- and he knows that he will. But it feels closed in, too closed in; he feels the claustrophobia clawing inside of his chest._

 _Fingers curl nervously into the bars as Elijah tries to re-position his grip and urges himself to take another step._

 _If he falls, he falls._

 _He takes the next step and feels that second of falling as the prosthetic cushions his knee and gives a little- trying to replicate a leg and all of its physical workings as best it can. But there's only so much silicon and plastic can replicate from flesh and bone._

 _It's another successful step though._

 _But the end of the practice path seems so far away._

 _It doesn't feel like he's going to get there._

 _But he can and he will- he has to._

 _Elijah makes it to the halfway point, taking in the words of encouragement from his therapy trainer. It's the little things that make it count, that make the struggle seem worth it. He swears he was in the best shape of his life before but now he has to pause between every few steps to take a breath. He can feel the sweat collecting on the back of his neck and convinces himself that it's just the therapy room that's making him sweat; it's too hot and his shirt is too thick that's all._

 _He makes it a few more steps before he hears his trainer stop before he feels a light clap on the back. The man ushers out a brief apology; he has to step out for a moment but he'll be back soon- the man wants him to continue practicing._

 _Elijah assures the trainer that he'll be fine and tries to focus more on his steps- and less on the fact that he can see his Commanding Officer in the doorway._

 _It makes his palms sweat as he imagines what they're going to talk about._

 _(Even as he tries to deny that the conversation is happening in the first place.)_

 _Elijah has been in the same conversation before though._

 _That quick, under-the-breath talk of whether or not someone is going to make it back onto the front lines._

 _Whether or not someone is going to be sent home instead._

 _It's so different from this point of view though._

 _The time of emergency for him has passed._

 _He survived the bullet, the hour's worth of bleeding out and blood loss._

 _He survived the amputation and the recovery._

 _Now it's just a waiting game of whether the prosthetic and he will click- and just how quickly he can bounce back with it. It's a waiting game of whether he's still of use to the military, whether they still need his skills as a combat medic._

 _But there are so many combat medics out there- some less controversial than him._

 _Elijah's not stupid; he knows what his unit said about him, what other soldiers have said behind his back._

 _It stings but it's nothing he isn't used to._

 _He's been a Korean-American for twenty-five years of his life, born and raised in America, raised in Alaska. He's been around the military for most of his teenage years and had to battle to be enlisted when he could. There was a draft and yet there was hesitation to sign him on-board. No one thought he would survive boot camp, but he did. No one thought he would survive his first tour but he did._

 _He can survive this._

 _He can prove them wrong._

 _Elijah breaths slow and careful and tries to walk without wincing._

 _His leg still feels raw and cut open even though the scar tissue has fully healed by this point; even though there are two layers of protection and cushion between his stump and the socket of the prosthetic. He has gone through fitting twice now to get rid of the pinching between plastic and flesh- but there's still pain. Pain from the nerves that had been cut and tied off._

 _Phantom pain, the doctors and just about everyone has warned him about._

 _He convinces himself it's still too early to feel it, to acknowledge it._

 _He's nearly at the end of the parallel bars when he feels the bar in his right hand buckle underneath him- w_ _hen he feels the weight of something (of someone maybe) hitting into them._

 _And Elijah surprises himself with how quick he is to let go of the unstable bar and reach back to grab the other with his now free hand, gripping it tightly to keep himself steady and supported. At the same time, he was turning himself towards the source to see what had happened, to see if the bar could be fixed. He's not entirely certain he would be able to make it to the other side without both supporting bars._

 _And part of him is surprised to see her again._

 _A face he'd never forget- although he's surprised to see it flushed and with color now, a far cry from the pale, pasty white she had been before._ _The warm color of the recreational center floods her better than the white wash of the hospital lighting. It draws attention to her square jaw, her once obviously-broken nose, and the flatness of one cheekbone- recently broken it would seem._

 _Still, he doesn't forget who she is._

 _The woman offers a sheepish grin as she straightens herself up, yanking the railing back into place as she does so; she gives it a mild shake to make sure that it's stable once more._

 _"What a familiar face- you come here often?" she presses in a modest attempt to make up for her stumble._

 _And Elijah's a little too caught up in the moment to really understand her jab._

 _She's got that same smile he had looked over to see after that first night together, bundled in the same hospital bed._

 _And while he is mostly amazed by how she looks now, his eyes can't help but to be drawn to the brace she carries on her back. It's strapped tight across her chest, shoulders and ribs, keeping it in place against any kind of improper movement._

 _"Scoliosis this time?" Elijah asks out of prompt, and he listens to the way she laughs in response._

 _"No, no," she assures before she gestures to the brace. "I miscalculated a jump out of the back of a downing helicopter and fucked up my back on landing. I almost broke my hip and both femurs too- Doc said it was a miracle that I didn't." She gestures to her flat cheek this time. "I did break my face though so I'm not a complete miracle. I've been doing therapy for a few weeks, on and off again when I can- just trying to get the muscles strong again." She pauses and leans into the bar once more, this time without dislodging it. And it's hard to ignore the way her eyes fall against him, notably trailing down. "I like your new leg."_

 _It's easier to work and exercise in loose-fitting shorts but Elijah admits that he hates the exposure of his prosthetic._

 _Just for now while the two of them are still enemies._

 _"Thanks, I just traded in the old one," Elijah replies and he catches himself laughing when she does. "Got a good warranty on this one at least."_

 _She snorts when she laughs this time and the noise only seems to make her laugh harder._

 _She offers a hand when she's finally done. "Luka."_

 _The name leaves him a little breathless._

 _They had introduced themselves to each other before but that had felt so informal, so impersonal- and Elijah had to admit he must've forgotten it during their stay together, or maybe after she had left. (Or maybe she had never introduced herself to him at all.)_

 _But hearing her name again is like meeting her all over again._

 _His head works enough to move his hand to take hers._

 _"Elijah."_

* * *

It takes a few more days for him to confidently get his footing under control again.

He is steady finally when he walks- even when he climbs the few metal staircases that alter the different floors of the Prydwen. Doing so puts a little more stress and pressure on his knee but Elijah paces himself; he knows better than to push what won't be pushed. And while his access around the Prydwen is limited due to work means, he gets enough freedom to be happy with.

He can move from the residential area to the garage to the medical bay and back again.

He can visit Neriah and Ingram in one cycle without needing a break- or a day between visits.

He can visit the merchant who runs the on-board shop, but he won't.

(The man had made a crack about selling his pre-war prosthetic as good scrap.)

More importantly though... he can go outside.

And that's the big step.

It takes him some self-convincing to do it, to gather his strength and courage to see what little of the world remains- but he does it.

He needs to see it.

Needs to see the full extent of what has happened to his world, to his home.

Elijah steps out onto the open bridge, feels the cold breeze on his skin and takes all of it in. He hadn't realized just how hot, how stagnant and stuffy the air inside of the airship has been until now. Has it always been so suffocating inside? The breeze brushes through his hair, stirs the skin on the back of his neck, and makes the healing wound of his scalp ache.

(The subtle bite of the chill reminds him of the frostbite on his cheeks.)

He takes a deep breath and feels the air turn cold and bitter in his chest.

He feels the chill of the guardrail against his palms as he wraps his hands around it; the metal burns against his skin but he only grips it harder.

Elijah closes his eyes and lets the breeze wash over him.

To say that he's already seen the outside world is both the truth and an understatement. Head Scribe Neriah had obtained some books and had been showing him a few photographs and documents of the new world; the woman insisted that it was better this way than getting the stone-cold truth all at once from his own eyes. Elijah understands where she was coming from; it would lessen the shock, lessen the realization that everything he knew was truly gone.

He hasn't seen anything but the horizon line and a few 'vertibirds' hanging from their stands; he still isn't sure just how they are made or where they came from- they're not like any helicopter that he's seen before. But he already knows that things are different. Even the water is different. Even the air is different.

Elijah knows that he needs to do this, needs to accept the new world even if he doesn't want to.

If he intends on living, on staying here than he needs to take that first step forward.

Taking in a deep breath, Elijah opens his eyes.

...

It is an old familiar landscape with a new look.

Burnt, radiated, and barely a glimmer of its former self.

(Just like him.)

Elijah sees the blast lines from the bomb, sees where years of storms, of unpredicted weather patterns have beaten the ground flat, have toppled buildings, and broken trees. He sees the carnage in the horizon, in the sky- a diluted, saturated shade of what he knew it to be. There is nothing here that reminds him of home, that reminds him of Boston. All the colors and lights are gone. There is nothing here.

He remembers this coastline, remembers the Boston airport down below, a cratered shell of a skeleton now; he remembers how he always hated the drive to get out here, hated the highway, the traffic. But he loved the look on Luka's face when he picked her up as soon as she got off the plane. There are still landmarks that he sees, that he recognizes- but he can also see where would-be landmarks should be, where they used to be, where they no longer were.

It hollows out a hole in his chest, reminds him of the time passed, the time given, and the time lost.

Reminds him of everyone he lost- friends, family, co-workers, and soldiers.

Wife and child.

It shakes him at the knees once more.

His hands grip tighter to the guardrail and Elijah feels the ache in his palms from it.

He thinks about the distance below, thinks about how the ground could solve his problems.

But he pushes the thought away as soon as it touches him.

There is nothing for him, but there are still things that he can do- things that he can create in this world.

(Maybe.)

There's a sharp crack in the distance that echoes hard across the coastline, that hits hard in his chest, in his knees, and for a second Elijah catches the glimmer of fire a few miles down the coast. It reminds him of the bomb, of the nukes, of the creaking vault elevator as it descended further and further down- allowing the darkness to engulf and swallow him whole.

"For fucks' sake!" an engineer on the bridge behind Elijah curses as he pulls himself out from underneath one of the Vertibirds. His hands and protective apron are covered in a mix of grease and oil, and fingers fumble to push his protective goggles down around his neck. The man lightly strikes the chassis of the flying machine as he stands- eyes glaring down the desolate coastline. "How many times are those fucking hillbillies going to be firing off those damn cannons?!"

"Just let them do their thing and ignore them," another engineer scoffs, hands wiping off on his thick apron as he tends to a second Vertibird. "They'll figure out soon enough that those cannons aren't exactly going to save them from anything."

Elijah frowns at the conversation behind him but he doesn't question, nor look back at it.

All he knows about this new world is the Prydwen, is the Brotherhood.

He hates to admit that he didn't even realize that there would be other people out there. That there are people not clad in Power Armor, not clad in ridiculous uniforms, preaching about technology and saving the world.

There's quite literally a whole new world in front of him.

And he still wants nothing to do with it.

 _"My Ghost, where did you go?"_


	3. Chapter 3

Scribe Haylen visits him again.

And again, Elijah isn't certain of why but the red-headed woman seems pleased to see him regardless.

She seems especially happy to see him walking around on his own.

Then again, she was the one who originally pulled him out of the Vault, still frozen and bleeding, and the last time she saw him was when he was barely able to lift himself. So to go from seeing him bedridden to walking about on his own, it was a big difference- it was something to be excited about.

"I don't understand why Elder Maxson didn't give you Danse's room," Haylen remarks as the two of them are seated at an empty table inside of the airship's bar. Haylen had invited him to talk with her while she was waiting for Paladin Danse to finish up his meeting with the Elder; she had apparently tagged along with the Paladin simply to visit him again.

Elijah felt it was out of place for him to say no.

He just wished they had picked a better location to speak.

The on-board bar itself was for recreation it would seem, for a little harmless buzz after grueling hours of work; Elijah understands the recuperative need. He never was a drinker himself but plenty of people in his unit would often go out to the bar after their work was done; beer had a tendency of making him sick and he hardly touched liquor on its own.

But for those who could handle it a little buzz could help take the edge off of some work-related stress.

Still...

It's a dangerous thing to have on such an isolated ship.

Elijah can see it in the eyes of some of the Brotherhood soldiers who hang around the counter, who drink by themselves in the corners of the room. Some of them are only pushing forward because of the liquor at their disposal. It's the only thing that keeps them going, the only thing that can probably numb the pain enough for them to ignore it.

It is a dangerous game and Elijah knows that everyone on-board knows it too.

But it's a game they've all played for too long; they can't go back now.

(If beer didn't make him sick to his stomach, Elijah figures he would be a victim too.)

"Danse is stationed at Cambridge right now and he's hardly ever on-board except when Elder Maxson calls," Haylen continues. Her fingers are picking at bite-sized pieces of what looks to be a dried fruit of some kind sitting in a bowl on the bar table.

Elijah doesn't necessarily trust the suspicious fruit (he's allergic to citrus) but it must be tolerable seeing as Haylen kept going back for another piece. She doesn't make any comments on it though and just chews through one piece while she absent-mindedly searches for another. Maybe it's more for the motion rather than the taste.

"It's a wasted room at this point."

It is interesting to note that Haylen uses the title of Elder when speaking of Maxson but Danse's title is noticeably missing.

Everyone had a rank, a title to adhere to, to be referenced to.

It's probably nothing but curiosity makes it stand out.

"I'm fine," Elijah assures and he figures it's the least that he can assure Haylen with. He doesn't see why his sleeping arrangements should be concerning given he's on a massive airship hovering a couple hundred yards off of the ground. His toys with the glass of water in front of him, slowly rotating it around with his fingertips. "I'm pretty used to sleeping in weird places."

"Combat medic, right?" Haylen questions, to which Elijah nods; he's not surprised that she remembers. "Must've been interesting."

"That's a word for it."

Haylen chuckles. "I was uh, I served as the field medic for Recon Squad Gladius when we traveled from the Capital Wastleland to here; there were seven of us in total. And there were plenty of Raiders and Gunners between us and the Commonwealth, so I was stitching and patching up a lot while we were on the move. So I might have a small jest of what you mean."

Elijah lets himself chuckle a little in response.

Maybe they have a little more in common than he thought.

"Can I ask what the 'W' in your full name stands for?"

The question comes out of the blue but Elijah figures it comes with the job since she's something akin to a field medic as well. Back before the bombs, he had memorized the full names of every person in his unit; often times it was the only means of identifying and separating soldiers. He once traveled with three guys who had the same first and last name- no relation; the only difference between them were their middle names.

It's really none of her business but Elijah sees no point in not answering; it's not like he's hiding from anyone.

"Wayna," he answers, taking a sip of water before he continues, "Elijah Wayna Mao."

(He doesn't tell her he legally changed his last name before he joined the military; it doesn't change the fact that it's still an American name on a Korean face.)

"Unique."

Maybe here in the Commonwealth it was.

Then again with names like Cade, Danse, and Maxson, it would certainly stick out.

"What's yours?" Elijah asks.

"It's... it's just Haylen," she answers and something about her tone implies that that is the truth.

An odd truth, but Elijah won't argue it.

There's a small draw of silence between them, a pause in conversation.

An awkward sense of just how much does one wish to know about the person in front of them.

But the silence reminds him of something.

"Listen I... I want to apologize for getting angry with you before, for yelling," Elijah starts, speaking just as equally out of the blue.

"You don't have to apologize," Haylen cuts in as reassurance. "You were in a tough position and us being there wasn't helping." She pauses, gives a sigh, and chews blandly at the next piece of fruit. "I didn't think it was the right time either but Elder Maxson pushed for it- and since Knight-Captain Cade agreed, I didn't have a choice."

The situation had put a lot of pressure and stress on him, yes.

But she didn't deserve his outburst, even as justified as it felt.

The guilt had been settling with him for some time now.

"I try not to be an angry person," Elijah remarks. "I try not to burn bridges."

"To be fair, there was hardly a bridge to burn," Haylen replies, another soft chuckle on her lips as she sips at her own glass of water; it would appear that she wasn't much of a drinker either. She clears her throat briefly before she speaks again. "It's been four months now since we pulled you out; you've been conscious for almost two of them." She pauses again and seems to be thinking something over; when she continues, it seems as though she does it with some hesitation. "If you, you know, if you want to talk about, or if you want to know anything about the Vault when we opened it..."

Elijah shivers at the offer, knows what's to come with it but obliges to the fact that he has been questioning it for some time now.

"What did you do with the bodies you pulled?"

It's a hard question to start with but it's a starting point.

"We burned them," Haylen answers. "It's... easier than digging and the smell only attracts the wildlife. And if a mongrel gets to a body- well, you probably already know where this is going."

He did.

It was hard to digest, to swallow, but Elijah takes reassurance in knowing that Luka wanted to be cremated anyways.

She always claimed her body was an epidemic waiting to happen.

"How did... how did everyone die exactly?" Elijah forces himself to question next.

He knows about the bullet in his head, knows how that was supposed to kill him.

But... did someone do that to the rest of the people in Vault 111 as well?

"Mechanical malfunction," Haylen answers once more. "I read through all of the journals in the vault and have sort of formulated an idea of what happened. While the people you went in with were to remain in cryogenic suspended-animation, the vault crew themselves were only supposed to remain in Vault 111 for roughly thirty days. After that, a safety call would be given and they would be evacuated. But something went wrong. A call never came, their supplies ran low, and eventually a fight between the workers and the Overseer broke out. Some of the crew members died but those who survived broke out and escaped the vault. However, without proper and consistent maintenance, it would seem that a fuse blew and shut down some of the vault's systems- including life support for cryogenic pods."

The words were tough to handle.

"Oxygen regulation shut down?" Elijah repeated.

"Yeah, but the cryogenic stasis remained so... everyone died in their sleep."

There was some solace in knowing that there was no pain.

No realization that they were dying.

"So my pod got lucky then?" he asks.

"I think somehow yours managed to reboot itself," Haylen offers, although she doesn't sound confident in her answer. And Elijah can't necessarily expect her to. There was no telling when exactly all of this happened, should it be months, years, decades before.

"So I survived two hundred years in a half-working piece of machinery out of sheer luck," Elijah remarks, and the words come out sounding more bitter than he intended. He takes a moment to still his breath and calm down. "It doesn't explain the bullet."

"No, it doesn't," Haylen agrees. "More than likely you were shot before you even woke up. But given the thin likelihood that you did wake, do you... remember anything that might jog the memory?"

Elijah has tried so many times before only to come up with the same blank answer.

He tries to push himself on the memories but all he sees is a black wall.

"I don't," he replies, "I can remember things like newspapers and military reports; I can remember the FEV scandal but... I can't remember my own family. I just- I remember the alarms, the panic; I remember stepping into the vault but that's where things end."

He tries to cling to whatever memory he can think of but not much ever comes to him.

He can re-live that morning in flashing images, in faded voices, but that's it; everything that's important, anything that might hold an answer for him is gone.

He faintly recalls the sense of weight in his arms, something heavy, and it sticks out to him.

"My son..." Elijah starts again, "I had him with me."

Haylen frowns at the words, a notable look of worry. "You had your son with you?" she questions. "You were sharing the same pod?"

"Yeah," he nods- and the thought of Shaun covered in his own father's blood crosses his mind. His pod had been the only one still functioning but maybe because Shaun had been so small, his body couldn't handle the suspended animation; his body couldn't process the transferring oxygen being pumped in and sucked out of the pod. Shaun was an infant, barely a month old at the time... He just couldn't handle the stress.

Haylen is quiet for what feels like a long time.

And Elijah figures she is out of respect.

"Elijah," Haylen finally speaks once more, "when we were initially cleaning out the Vault... there was no one in that pod but you."

The words linger, trickling through his mind.

He's confused by the wording at first.

Shaun was there.

Shaun was in his arms, fresh out of his crib, and wrapped up tight in his blanket, wrapped up tight in his arms.

The words hit like a fucking bus.

"What? No, no- he was in there with me," Elijah stumbles. "He was in the pod when we got in... He- he was a baby, he was too small to be on his own."

Haylen's face continues to darken the longer he speaks- and Elijah realizes now that they had been on the wrong page this whole time.

"All we know right now is that at some point, someone shot you," she starts. "Someone opened Vault 111 and targeted you rather specifically but..." hesitation, "maybe you weren't the initial target."

The words hit him hard once more.

It doesn't feel like he can even breathe at this point.

"You think... someone took my son?" Elijah whispers, disbelief that he even has to ask that.

"It's... it's a possibility."

It's a possibility, a scenario that he has never considered, one he never wanted to think of.

What would someone possibly want with his infant son?

And how the hell would someone know that Shaun was even in there?

Unfortunately the realization opens more questions- questions to things he wasn't ready to ask, he never thought to ask.

"My wife," Elijah starts again, fingers clinging to the wet glass in his hands, afraid of what he's going to hear next, "she was in the pod across from me…"

He wants to hear bleak reassurance that she had been pulled out with the others.

That she had been burned with the others.

But again he sees that look on Haylen's face.

"It was empty."

How?

How was this happening?!

"The pod across from you was open when we got there," Haylen starts ahead of him. "We thought it was odd but after reading the journals we though maybe someone didn't show up in time before the vault closed. The I.D. screen was broken so we had no way of telling if it had even been occupied." There was a pause as she seemed to be collecting her thoughts, just as easily caught off-guard by the entire situation. "So... that means that at some point, your wife was able to escape from the vault completely then. Maybe... maybe she went after the man who had shot you and took your son with her."

That sounded like Luka.

But...

There was over two hundred years worth of time to go through.

There was no telling when exactly Luka got out- or maybe when someone forced her out.

It could've been decades ago and she was already dead.

... And that was the worst of it.

It was impossible for him to know.

"But why shoot me?" Elijah presses once more. "Unless someone knew that the vault was there and knew that I was specifically there as well, what was the purpose? Was someone really that upset that I was in the vault?"

"There was a fight between the workers, maybe a stray bullet," Haylen starts, but even she doesn't seem convinced by her own reasoning. "I don't know what to tell you, Elijah."

He doesn't even know what to tell himself.

He doesn't even know how to comprehend the new information that he's been given.

(It's all too much information at one time.)

"I'll... try to do some more research about the Vault," Haylen offers. "I know there's a Vault-Tec headquarters building around here somewhere, maybe I can find some kind of records or something. Maybe the people who escaped went there."

She's trying.

She's trying to offer him something.

"What was your wife's name? Maybe I can find something about her."

Elijah feels the condensation from his glass wet on his palms, making it hard to keep a grip on the glass.

"Luka Snow," he answers- and just hearing her name in his own voice makes it hurt.

"I'll try looking through the old military outposts- if she did escape maybe she went there," Haylen continues.

Maybe.

Maybe.

"... She also went by the name _Ghost_."

* * *

 _"I hear the Ghost is visiting."_

 _Elijah glances up at the words, barely pulling himself away from the computer terminal in front of him where he's been trying to write a medical report for the past hour. "The Ghost?" he repeats, unsure if he trusts his colleague's word- but the man only grins and nods at him in return, in the purest form of confidence._

 _"The one and only," the man, Baker, nods again, as he's leaning into the open curtain of Elijah's medical station. "The Ghost herself, she who answers only to the call of her scope and rifle." Dramatic. "She's apparently about to be shipped off to God-knows-where for who-knows-what kind of red tape event- and we just so happen to be her last stop before the plane rides out of here."_

 _Alright._

 _So the Ghost was all-powerful in terms of the rifle in her hands but she still needed a medical officer to pass her off for flight._

 _"It's all a mater of convenience but it's not every day that the Ghost just drops in. She's a legend, my man."_

 _The Ghost was a well-established informant, infiltrator, and sniper within the military ranks._

 _How she got to the point of juggling so many titles, let alone how she got to answering to only the President, was a mystery with no answers. But the woman had clearly gotten her life path set in order. She infiltrated enemy regions with ease, stole information when needed, and even took on personal assassinations when ordered to- eliminating political opponents with a simple squeeze of the trigger._

 _Her job, her work, was far from glamorous, but when it came down to someone needing to do it, she pulled out all the stops._

 _The public had never heard of her but she was like a celebrity of some sorts to the soldiers around here._

 _(And they had all been given specific orders to never speak of her to the general population.)_

 _(The President dictated what could be released, what could be said about her, and that was it. Controlled information.)_

 _Elijah would be lying if he denied that he wasn't amazed in some sense by her talents. The Ghost had stolen information that helped the US avoid three would-be catastrophic events- saving countless soldiers and countless civilian lives as well. All at the cost of perhaps her own sanity and morals- but everything had been done for the greater good. At least, in the American eyes._

 _"Hey, maybe if we're lucky she'll need a physical."_

 _"Baker!" Elijah chides, only to watch as the man ducks out of his station laughing._

 _He shakes his head and tries to push the conversation from his mind as he goes back to his computer._

 _It's been two months now and he's already been re-instated. He still has a few more months before he can go back to combat, but for now he works at the on-base medical wing in Anchorage. It's slow and boring compared to running with his unit and patching people up on the go, but it's better than nothing. The medical station gets the occasional soldier who comes through needing a vaccine of sort just before getting deployed or someone who needs a quick fix for their cold._

 _One soldier did come by needing an anti-venom shot after being bitten by a snake while out on patrol._

 _It's slow but it's better than sitting at home._

 _The medical officers are certainly refreshing to be around as well. They seem courteous and nice enough; they're more understanding about his leg than most and a few of them have given him tips on how to keep things maintained. They think the whole incident was unfair and have remarked that they're glad he was able to pull through, that he was able to come back so quickly._

 _It could be lies for all Elijah knows but..._

 _Sometimes lies are better than the truth._

 _Elijah picks up his pen and tries once more to finish his report._

 _An hour or so passes in frustrating silence before a solider runs into the office and announces that the Ghost has arrived. And while the Ghost technically has no clear rank, or authority, everyone acts as though the Head General himself is about to walk in. There's quick shuffling to clean the place up- shoving spare chairs against already crowded tables, as well as pushing paperwork out of sight._

 _Everyone moves to the front of their stations- backs straight and completely poised._

 _Elijah finds the behavior a little over the top but figures he should fit in with them._

 _He tries to ignore the dull throbbing in his knee as he stands, knowing well that the pain is from sitting around for most of the morning- which is his own damn fault. He should try to exercise more but he still isn't used to walking around the base with his artificial leg; he doesn't like the conversations that it starts. He doesn't like pretending that he doesn't know what people have_ _said about him behind his back._

 _He doesn't like confrontation; he learned a long time ago that he'll never win it._

 _The doors to the medical bay open and in walks the only person Elijah can presume is Ghost._

 _The woman's dressed in what looks like after-work fatigues rather than an uniform- but something about it gives him the impress that that is her uniform. After all, the Ghost can't do her job in the garbs that everyone else wears; it would be too obvious. She needs something dark to hide her, something that will set her apart, something that will make her disappear._

 _Her long, black hair is pinned into a tight bun against the back of her head._

 _It just barely skirts the appropriate regulated_ _length, although the common military rules probably don't apply to her._

 _She walks tall, broad on the shoulders, and light on the feet._

 _Maybe it's her poise, her attitude, the way she carries herself, but she looks and feels taller than every person in the room._

 _She is oddly stoic and there's little movement in her face as she walks in._

 _Everyone on staff gives their greetings but something about this woman has Elijah at a loss for words._

 _Then she catches his eyes._

 _And things click._

 _"Elijah?"_

 _For a few seconds, there's a sense of shock that washes over him._

 _This is THE Ghost and yet he sees_ _her as the woman starved from Malaria, as the woman in a brace needing the parallel bars just as much as he did. The woman who had laughed so hard she snorted- and then laughed even harder at herself for it. Laughed hard enough that she ended up giving herself a nose bleed and had to be excused to the nurse's office by her physical trainer._

 _"You're the Ghost?" Elijah starts, and he's fully aware that he's caught the eyes of the other medical officers in the room._

 _Luka grins and drops her 'Ghost' facade as she walks towards him- closing the space between them easily. "Yeah, well, on business I am- but you can still call me Luka," she assures._

 _And Elijah can practically feel the way her eyes are looking him over, up and down, again and again._

 _Of course, he was shamelessly doing the same to her- more in disbelief however._

 _"You look good," she starts, one hand moving to brush against his arm, highlighting the thin space between them now. "How's the leg treating you? Because I signed up for some ballroom dancing classes and I don't have a partner yet."_

 _Elijah laughs at her jab- and it feels like the first time he's laughed in a long time._

 _"It's been better," he replies, skirting the question as he usually did. "I take it you're here for someone to pass you off for international waters, right?"_

 _"That would be it," Luka remarks, and then groans. "You would think with how often I do this, the Heads would just accept that I'm going over waters whether my health likes it or not."_

 _He chuckles at her elaborated annoyance before he reaches back and pulls open the thick curtain to his station. "After you, Ghost."_

 _Luka gives him a smile, sweetly curled on her lips, and ducks under his arm to accept the invitation._

 _Elijah pretends that he doesn't feel the slightest brush of her hand against his abdomen- just like he pretends that he doesn't see the other medical officers giving him thumbs up and silent cheers. He steps into the small station after and pulls the heavy curtain closed behind him._

 _The place doesn't give much in terms of privacy but the quiet scuffling of footsteps outside assures him that everyone has moved out of the range of eavesdropping._

 _For now anyways._

 _"So this is where they put you up?" Luka asks, giving the small_ _medical area a look over._

 _"Well I won't be available for active duty re-enlistment for a few months still, but for the time being they found an opening for me to hold down," Elijah answers, watching as the woman moves up onto the examination table. "The fact that the military allowed me to come back at all is enough on its own. To be honest, i_ _f I get stuck here for the rest of my tour, I think I'd be okay with it- although active combat is, or was my forte."_

 _"You didn't want to wait for re-enlistment at home?" Luka questions._

 _"I could've and I thought about it but... it wasn't a good idea."_

 _"Afraid you'd talk yourself out of coming back?"_

 _"Nah- I was afraid I'd come back twice the size," Elijah replies as he moves to sit down at his terminal once more. His knee stings a little when the pressure comes off of the socket. "You've never seen a Korean mother cook before, have you?" he asks- and he finds that he really likes it when he can get her to laugh. "Anyways, it's better for me to keep working; it gives me other things to focus on and the military still needs my skills around here."_

 _"Always coming down to what the military can and can't have," Luka speaks. "I know the feeling."_

 _Yeah, he bet she did._

 _She was practically living it._

 _"First name, last name? Or can I just search 'Ghost' in the system?" Elijah asks as he inputs his password into his computer and roots through his open programs- eventually finding the one needed to access medical records. He should try and actually get to work now instead of playing twenty unrelated-health question. It was a surprise to see Luka again, and here of all places, sure, but he still had a job to do; she was his patient for now after all._

 _"Luka Snow."_

 _His fingers enter her name while his mind is caught on it._

 _Her records pop up almost instantly._

 _They're labeled as classified and Elijah's level of access just barely skirts over the red tape._

 _The name 'GHOST' is copied in red across the top of her forms._

 _(Seems like knowing her name wasn't necessarily needed after all.)_

 _Elijah knows now that she's the Ghost, the one and only, but he's seen her so many times before, so many times out of title, it just... She feels like an old friend. They've hardly met more than just a handful of times, this being their third time, and yet he feels a connection to her; they've both seen the other under less-than-healthy circumstances._ _They've seen each other at their worst and that offers an odd sense of exposure and vulnerability with it._

 _"You know, I guess before we get started, I uh... I never thanked you for what you did for me back at the hospital," Elijah starts, and wonders if he's out of place for talking about it. Doesn't matter though because it needs to be said. "It probably wasn't much to you but it really helped me through those rough beginning days."_

 _Now was really not the time for a heart-to-heart but Luka was leaving soon and there was never a time table for her return._

 _And Elijah would rather that she'd know for certain than just sort of hope that she knew._

 _"I'm glad," Luka replies. "You don't have to thank me though, it was kind of a healing thing for the both of us."_

 _"Is that so?"_

 _Luka nods and slumps down against the wall as she tucks her legs up towards her chest. "I told you I was in solitary after a bout of Malaria," she starts. "New strain, new whatever, so the only people I ever saw on a daily basis were doctors and nurses in hazmat gear. Not exactly the friendliest sight nor the friendliest people when you're half-delusional from a triple-digit fever. Anyways, once the danger of it passed, I got itchy and kind of touch-starved- I was looking forward to leaving and just running to the first person I saw to be honest. And then they brought you in and... that starvation kind of kicked in."_

 _Elijah would think it surprising if he didn't see where the woman was coming from._

 _Two weeks in isolation wasn't healthy for anyone- even if it was out of medical necessity._

 _"I understand the timing wasn't exactly perfect but you know..." Luka finishes with a shrug. "Kind of wish the medical staff didn't get so angry about it though."_

 _Elijah chuckles and turns his attention back to her. "Well, to be fair, you were just cleared from the contagious stage of Malaria and you immediately cuddled up with me, who was fresh out of surgery and had the weakest immune system due to a cocktail of medication."_

 _Luka laughs once more. "Okay, okay, you might have a point," she offers slimly. There's a subtle pause before she cocks her head to the left- and damn near tips her whole body with the motion. "You know, I'm supposed to report back in like two months, so if you've got the time and you're still around, you want to leave base for a night with me?"_

 _It takes a few seconds for the words to click._

 _"Is... is the Ghost asking me out on a date right now?" Elijah questions._

 _"Depends on your answer."_

* * *

Haylen leaves and her absence leaves Elijah with more questions.

Questions he has no hope of finding answers for.

Part of him is in disbelief that he's learning all of this now but... he lost his temper the first time Haylen tried to tell him. He took her words at face value and didn't want to go any deeper than that. But now, now he does know.

He does and he doesn't.

Because he doesn't know where Shaun is, he doesn't know what happened to Luka.

Maybe someone took both of them.

Maybe someone just took Shaun.

Maybe...

It doesn't explain the bullet though.

Fingers trace the healing scar against his scalp.

Did he- did something happen when they took Shaun?

(Whoever ' _they_ ' are.)

Did he wake up too?

* * *

A few weeks go missing.

Elijah doesn't know where or how but it feels like he just checked out of this reality.

Too much information, it feels like he short-circuited again.

(Got lost in the day cycles.)

(Doesn't care to come back up for air when he should.)

(Haylen hasn't returned with any new information either.)

But the sudden rush of activity on the Prydwen drags him back in.

The airship is increasingly louder these days and there are numerous Brotherhood soldiers moving around, lugging off cargo and refurbished Power Armor suits with them. Boxes come in and go out within hours as old shells are recycled into new bullets. It's interesting and almost bizarre to witness how the Prydwen is transforming into a floating factory instead.

(Elijah hasn't slept in almost two days now from the noise alone though.)

Curiosity lingers and finally hits its breaking point.

"What's going on?" Elijah finally questions, finally finding the time and space to walk to the maintenance bridge.

"Elder Maxson is finally launching a full-scale attack on Fort Strong," Ingram answers, looking exhausted by the commotion as well. She's been working overtime getting the new suits out and getting everyone else checked up and passed off. "We've been eyeing it for awhile now but the Super Mutants who inhabit the fort have been able to fight off each of our attacks; they've killed half a dozen of our guys already and have destroyed four suits in total. But apparently we've got a secret weapon now and the Elder wants to re-launch the siege."

This is the first instance Elijah's heard of the Brotherhood actually doing something.

"Why Fort Strong?"

"It's got the ammo and fuel we need for our men- not to mention a cache of mini-nukes as well," she replies. "It's also a good tactical advantage to have and it makes sure we have a solid hold on this coastline. And not to say that they're a threat by any means, but the Commonwealth Minutemen have been stirring up some dust lately and Elder Maxson isn't taking kindly to them."

And this would be another instance where he's heard of a faction outside of the Brotherhood.

Of a world outside the Prydwen.

"Minutemen?" Elijah repeats.

"Just a bunch of hillbillies in hats," Ingram clarifies. "They're just spreading propaganda and false hope across the Commonwealth. If the people here want real protection, Elder Maxson can offer it through means of the Brotherhood."

Elijah silences his gut response to the remark.

"I see," he replies instead. "So when are they launching the siege on Fort Strong?"

"Tonight."

* * *

The battle of Fort Strong goes on for hours.

Elijah can hear it outside of the Prydwen and when curiosity continues, he finds himself out on the flight bridge.

The coastal island is lit up with fire and smoke.

There are Vertibirds flying overhead, shooting down at objects that he can't see.

They look like ants now but he can see where reinforcements are walking the thin coastal path to get to the island- ready to lay down covering fire.

It's hard to say who will win or lose.

But with the firepower, with the manpower, Elijah finds it hard that the Brotherhood will face another defeat at the hands of Super Mutants.

(It reminds him of how he joined the military out of necessity.)

(Reminds him of how he's always hated war.)

He lingers on the battle front for a short while before he turns to retreat inside, to take advantage of the silence.

* * *

Elijah hears the commotion coming in from the deck as he tries to find sleep in the pillow underneath him.

The commotion is disturbingly loud and mainly consists of heavy, metallic footsteps and what sounds like faint cheering.

He has never heard these Brotherhood soldiers celebrate like that before.

Hell, Elijah's never really heard them celebrate at all and had only seen a few gestures here or there of what could be perceived as celebratory. After being on this ship and making what observations he can, these soldiers hardly seem like a lively bunch.

It must've been Fort Strong.

They must've finally taken the island over.

The battle must've lasted all night.

Elijah turns over and tries to block the sun out as best he can.

If victory is the case than they deserve to celebrate; they deserve to be happy about this seemingly long-awaited victory. (Although with Power Armor, multiple airships, as well as countless guns, it's hard to understand why it has taken this long for them to get this far.)

His leg is hurting again though and Elijah just wants to sleep the pain off.

This is the most silence he has had in days and yet the fingers of insomnia are clawing at the insides of his eyes still. It is a feeling that has clung on to him for several days now and he can't seem to shake it off. He thought by now he'd be exhausted enough to fight through it for a few hours at least, just enough to regain some of his sanity, but such is not the case.

(The insomnia is almost as loud as the battle of Fort Strong.)

The voices keep getting louder and louder though- and at this point it sounds as though the entire Brotherhood pack is moving through the airship. It sounds as though every person on the Fort Strong islands, Vertibirds included, are inside of the compact spaces of the Prydwen.

"Where the _fuck_ is Elder Maxson?!"

A single voice cuts through the noise like glass, like a knife- like a bullet shot from a sniper's barrel.

Every other voice has been muffled, has been spoken over, but that voice- that single _voice_ stands out amongst the other shouting.

It cuts into him, freezes him under thin blankets and false heat.

It resonates inside of him, thundering and echoing over and over again.

Elijah swears he knows that voice- swears he's heard it so many times over that he just _knows_.

He finds himself getting up against his better judgement, against the aching pain in his leg.

It can't be her.

Luka's dead- she has to be dead, there's no other explanation.

She might've escaped, or been forced out, but she's still dead.

It's _not_ her.

And yet Elijah's hands are already pulling his prosthetic back on, carefully sliding the socket over his knee and feeling the still uncomfortable seal of it against his skin. It still feels artificial to him.

He stands, barely testing his weight on his leg, barely testing to make sure he put it on correctly in such a rush, before he finds himself moving towards the commotion- towards that voice.

It's not her, Elijah knows it's not.

But he has to see, has to prove it, has to know for certain.

He'll look odd going to the crowd but... it'll be fine.

He'll just be checking in on things, asking how things went, how Fort Strong went.

He'll congratulate them and then be off again.

But he just has to know.

Has to _know_ where the voice came from.

Elijah steps heavy towards the source, making his way by large cargo boxes, heading towards the on-ship bar once more.

He moves down the narrow corridor and spots the rather hefty crowd gathered around in the tight bar area. While the place is hardly ever empty, it's hardly ever that full either. Every unit from Fort Strong must've returned- Christ it looks like they might sink the airship with how many of them are compact into one tight space. It's hard to see the difference from one person to the next.

The crowd was probably celebrating with a round on the house- a common celebration.

His eyes move from soldier to soldier, from Power Armor to Power Armor...

And then he sees... something.

He sees _someone_ who's here, someone who doesn't fit in.

It's a woman and she's not wearing the Brotherhood uniform like everyone else- Hell she's not even wearing something remotely like it.

She's clad in jeans instead and a white shirt instead, a rather simple looking ensemble compared to the Brotherhood suits (like the one Elijah's still wearing). There's a hip harness that is strapped around each thigh and looped through a makeshift belt; she's got a holster hanging from her left hip that's carrying what looks to be a pistol of some kind. Her white shirt is layered over with a chest holster- at least that's what it looks like from the back, from where he's standing. She has a shotgun strapped across the back of her hips for easy carrying, allowing her to keep her hands free while still remaining armed.

And her hair...

It's half pinned into a bun, half hanging down in a braid.

"I don't care what his fucking deal is- I need to speak with him. _NOW_."

The voice cuts and Elijah realizes that it's the woman speaking.

And he feels his body run cold.

"Elder Maxson will speak with you when he returns, Knight Ghost- you should enjoy yourself for the time being."

And it cuts.

It cuts, it cuts, _it cuts._

It's been over two hundred years and he still knows that name- it's not possible.

It's been too long, someone else could've picked it up, someone else could be using it, but Elijah knows only one person who went by it.

One person who made a living off of being a ghost.

"Luka."


	4. Chapter 4

_"Luka."_

Elijah runs the name over and over again in his head.

He watches as the muscles of the woman's back pull tight and tense up in response. He swears he can almost see the draw of tension, see how it pulls across her entire body, pulling stiff under her skin. Swears he can see the tension pulling back on her shoulders, pulling her arms back with it. It's an exaggeration but in that moment that's how it looks, that's how it feels.

It's like the strings of a puppet being pulled taut by its master.

Elijah feels every pair of eyes on him now and he just barely breaks contact enough to catch the faces of the Brotherhood soldiers standing around her. He's not certain why but maybe it's to confirm that she isn't an illusion; she isn't a mirage created by his shattering mind. She's real and she's standing right here in front of everyone- and they can see her too.

He sees annoyance in the Brotherhood faces, if only for a second just before their eyes move from him to her and then back to him.

He doesn't know what they're thinking.

But they are thinking something and it feels like there's something they know that he doesn't.

(Or maybe he does know.)

And he can only imagine what this woman, what this _Ghost_ must be thinking.

But if Elijah knows anything about her and he might- no, he does, God knows he does...

He knows her better than he knows himself in some aspects.

He was mesmerized by her when they first _officially_ met and he still is; he has memorized her more than names on medical reports, more than names on casualty lists. He knows what she looks like front to back, with or without clothes. He has been married to her, has lived with her long enough to know how she acts, how she dresses- whether its in civilian clothing or her ghillie suit.

He knows how she wears her hair.

It's either in a braid or in a bun.

And sometimes she chooses both.

He knows this is her and if that is the case than he knows that this place, this Commonwealth, these people, only know her by Ghost.

Because that is who she is, that is _what_ she is.

Luka sneaks in and out like a bat out of Hell.

(A two-hundred year-old bat out of Hell.)

She is quiet; she is precise; she is perfect.

She is _Ghost._

 _(Ghost, Ghost, Ghost.)_

And Elijahs knows, _he knows,_ that this is her and he knows that this is the first time in two hundred years that she has heard her own name- her _real_ name.

And after two centuries there is only one person who knows it.

It's the dead man with a bullet in his head, freezing to death twice-over under the ground.

It's the dead man she met in the ICU in the middle of the night; the one who was in so much agony from the fresh phantom pain that he spent most of their earliest time together puking and feeling delusional. Not that Luka was all that much better, wheezing and shivering in the bed next to him.

But she got him laughing enough to keep him alive, to keep him sane enough to leave a few weeks later.

Elijah's heart is heavy and it feels like a stone in his chest, pounding irregularly in his head. It makes the still-fresh scar tissue burn, makes the fresh crack in his skull feel wider, reminding him of how lucky he is to be alive.

And how much luckier he is to see her again.

She turns.

One foot back and angled before the rest of her body follows in a slow motion.

Elijah knows; he knows, _he knows._

And Luka doesn't say anything when she finally sees him.

When her green eyes, darkened by whatever world there is outside, land on his own- dull and dead in their own right.

Her body is tense still.

It looks like every muscle is pull tight and held stiff- so much so that Elijah can see the shaking of her hands which are clenched tightly at her side.

Luka's face is tan but there's rough patches of red on her cheeks and forehead; there's a spot of dark-red sunburn that runs down the length of her nose. She still has the spots of freckles that run across the bridge of her nose and scatter across her cheeks; it seems like there's more of them now though, reproduced by the sun. There's an open cut on the right of her jaw and the red swelling to it confirms that it's relatively fresh. It's the only thing that isn't supposed to be there.

She's covered in sweat; there's visible beads of it against her skin, catching the pale, washed-out light of the bar.

(She's been fighting it seems- but what?)

The Prydwen has fallen still and gone dead quiet around them.

They stare at one another for what feels like too long.

Elijah feels as though his entire body has completely locked up; he's completely frozen just by the sight of her. He sees memories flashing over and over again in front of him, allowing him to relive moments where he has felt this same kind of feeling between them. Memories of catching Luka right as she steps off of her plane, returning home after a two, sometimes three month absence. Memories of seeing her walk through the bedroom door, half-dressed for bed, half-dragging herself to him out of utter exhaustion. All of it stirs the same kind of feeling.

A sense of happiness that she was home again.

And she is.

She is home.

Elijah wants to move; he wants to run to her but he can't.

His head is still barely attached, his leg too for that matter, and everything feels as though it will fall apart if he so much as budges. But he wants to, he needs to, and he does. He takes half a step forward at best but he feels his body strain with the subtle movement. It feels like something is physically holding him back and he doesn't know why. He wants to be with her; he wants to be able to touch her again, to confirm that it's her, that she's real. But it feels like his body might buckle if he so much as moves again.

But it is enough.

Not for him but for Luka.

It's enough to prove to her that he isn't a nightmare, that he isn't a hallucination or a mirage.

... That he isn't a ghost himself.

And Luka comes running to him.

Her feet are heavy on the metal plates below. She replicates the sound and feeling of Power Armor walking, moving, and she threatens to dislodge the metal plates from their frames as the space between them closes.

And closes quickly.

Elijah barely braces himself before he feels her impact- full body, full force.

Luka hits hard.

The force alone nearly knocks Elijah off of his feet, off of his good leg, but it's the tightness of her arms locking around him that pulls him back in. And Elijah does the same; he locks his arms around Luka just the same. He wraps his arms around her neck and shoulders, buries his head into her thick hair, full of dust and sweat. Elijah breaths her in, breathing in the radiation and blood that lingers on her.

And it's the greatest things he has smelt in two hundred years.

Neither of them say a thing, neither of them even move.

It feels like he's only supported by the force of her against him.

(And maybe it's the same in return.)

Elijah doesn't want to move, doesn't want to talk.

He's afraid that if he does, he gives it all up.

He loses the illusion.

He wakes up from the dream and he's still stuck freezing to death under the ground.

Luka's hands form fists against his back. They rub up and down between his ribs and hips before they lightly pound against him; her courtesy gesture every time they reunited before. Her fingers bundle the thin material of his shirt in her fists; she tugs and pulls on it as her body partly rocks against his own. She presses and buries her head into his chest, against his collarbones, and she only pulls away to breathe.

And there's a broken sort of cry that escapes her lips when she does so.

"I saw you die," Luka whispers, her voice shivering and tight in her throat.

It dig and it cuts into him.

Elijah doesn't know what to say, doesn't know how to comprehend what's being said.

Luka saw the gun, saw the bullet, saw everything.

He should be dead.

He shouldn't be here- but he is.

(And so is she.)

(And so are they.)

And everything is so surreal now.

They are both here, two hundred years in the future; the world and the people they once knew are gone, long since burnt to dust and ash. There are people, there are monsters now but the world still turns no matter what.

"Come on, clear out of here," Ingram steps in, no doubt drawn in by the commotion herself by this point. There is still silence from the crowd but there are also soft murmurs as it reluctantly begins to dissipate. Eyes are still watching though, necks still craning to see what's happening, to see what's going to happen. "Celebrate elsewhere- or better yet, get back to your stations! Fort Strong is just one victory, let's not lose our heads over it- and don't make me force your sorry asses out of here!"

Elijah tightens his grip on Luka and steps back without releasing her, pulling her back along with him.

"Come on," he whispers, pulling her back towards the recreational area, pulling her back towards his own little sanctuary.

They move away from the crowd, away from prying eyes.

They stumble through the narrow corridors but they eventually make it back to the dead silence of the belly of the Prydwen.

Elijah holds onto her against the thin mattress of his bed; he feels the tight entanglement of their bodies, of their limbs all tied together. He buries his head into her soft hair once more, breathing her in over and over again.

He doesn't want to let her go, not again.

He feels the heat, the weight of Luka in his arms, the pressure of her tucked against his chest.

He feels every breath, every movement, and he remembers a time like this before where he had held her tight in his arms. Cautious and careful, terrified of hurting the frail, drained body that had once been hers. One too many months across the ocean, one too few supply drops, and too much focus on her objective rather than herself. Fresh out of the hospital, she had still held the scent of death and medicine on her skin; she still had the hospital bracelet on her wrist. She had tucked against him, absorbing his body heat to substitute for the lack of her own.

He had kept her anchored to him, gently rocking her throughout the night- more so for himself at some points.

When Elijah closes his eyes, he can feel more memories rush through him.

He can still remember them holding onto one another in the early morning- her pregnant belly between them.

If he was lucky he could feel the subtle kick from her belly every now and again.

He remembers tired eyes and tired laughing.

Remembers the loose kisses between each one.

(Those memories were over two hundred years old now but they were still his.)

"I was locked inside of one of those cryogenic pods when they came in," Luka starts, breaking the silence between them. Her fingers run up and down the length of his arm, trailing over the wrinkles of his borrowed uniform. "There were only two people, a mercenary and a scientist; they purposely targeted your cell because they wanted Shaun. But they had to wake you up and when they did you wouldn't let go of Shaun. You started fighting back and..." there was a pause, a shuddered breath. "I couldn't do anything when he shot you. I was... screaming and pounding on the glass but there was nothing I could do to save either of you."

Elijah can't begin to imagine how painful the memory must be to recount, let alone say it out loud.

He can't imagine how it must've looked from her point of view- locked behind frosted glass, screaming and pounding at a frozen door.

He feels his chest seize up at the imagery, feels the knots in his throat and the subtle burning in his eyes.

There is some comfort in knowing that he fought until the end- that he made sure that whoever shot him knew that they wouldn't win otherwise. He forced them to use a gun, to take him out, in order to steal such a small child.

"Is Shaun..." Elijah starts, unsure if he wants to finish the question.

(Unsure if he wants to know the answer.)

"He's alive," Luka assures, her hand gently squeezing at his bicep. "I... I've seen him- sort of."

The answer doesn't settle well.

There's something more to it.

"The man who shot you, his name was Kellogg," Luka explains, the words quiet and soft in the curve of his neck. "He worked for the Institute; he was their mercenary. He was sent to Vault 111 for Shaun, for reasons I'm still unclear about. He shot you, left me for 'back-up', and then disappeared. I saw glimpses of him through 'videos'; I saw Shaun with him- alive at the very least."

The answers still aren't making sense to him.

There's so much more to this- there has to be.

"Do we know where this Kellogg asshole is?" Elijah questions, as he runs his fingers through her dark hair now, once more assuring himself that she is real. That he can still see, touch, and smell her. And the motion, the confirmation of each stroking brush gives him comfort.

"He's dead. I killed him a few weeks back."

Elijah shouldn't be surprised- and he's not.

Luka is the most loving woman he has ever met.

But Ghost is a stone-cold killer.

Elijah is not surprised that Luka broke out of the Vault and let Ghost loose on this man, on Kellogg.

"Shaun's with the Institute. Kellogg didn't have him when I cornered him," Luka finishes; she gives a pause before she continues, "I'm still looking."

Again, he hears the word Institute.

The first time was from Head Scribe Neriah, when she tried to explain to him what a Synth was.

And since then he has overheard it from various other Brotherhood members- each one speaking about it with more and more anger.

But Luka knows about it too.

And she has experience with it.

"What's the Institute?" Elijah questions.

All he knows is that it's an unknown organization operating in the Commonwealth.

And something about them kidnapping and killing people.

Something about synthetics.

"I don't know, some big... machine?" Luka offers. "It's hard to get a straight answer since no one really seems to know and no one wants to talk about it. The Institute's been terrorizing the Commonwealth for years though- decades even. They've been kidnapping and killing people as they see fit to do- and releasing these 'Synths' on people to kill and destroy settlements and cities at will. I don't know, I don't know the exact details. I just know what it is from rumors, from eyewitnesses- from killing their outside man."

It hardly answers much.

Especially not the question he knows they both desperately want an answer to.

"What would they want with Shaun?" Elijah continues and even he can hear the brief crack in his voice with the question. "He's just a baby."

Luka's grip on him tightens as she buries her head into him once more.

"I don't know."

Elijah pulls her in once more, breaths her in once more. "Luka... what happened to us?"

They were frozen.

They escaped- abet in different conditions and in different ways.

And now they're here, stuck two-hundred years in the future, with little to nothing known about what was going on, about what had happened to their son.

"I don't know," Luka repeats as she pulls away from him now, as her warm hands move to grab at his jaw before she pulls him down to her- pressing her forehead to his. "But I have you now and it's better than before... We'll figure this out. We'll get our son back. And we'll take things on from there."

Elijah knows that he can trust Luka to be confident, to know exactly what to say, to know what he wants to hear even if he doesn't know what it is.

But he wants to know that one of them has a plan at least- an idea of where to go from here.

Even if it's as broad as just finding their son.

At least it's the first step.

Luka moves her hand to his head; her fingers gently feeling where black strands were growing in again.

Elijah waits for her to find the scar, the still-healing wound.

But when her fingers refuse to move further, he reaches up and moves them for her.

The scar doesn't hurt when she touches it, when the pads of her fingertips gently press to it- allowing her to see, to feel how things were fixed.

"I saw you die," Luka whispers once more.

"The bullet went in and out," Elijah replies simply enough. "I blacked out from the shock and got frozen over again when the door was closed so... I was basically in kind of like a comatose state. The cold kept me stable, kept me from bleeding out, and kept cranial swelling at a minimal, which is why I survived in the first place. I don't remember anything from the actual incident. I only know anything from what people have told me and most of it's just been a theory." He pauses and continues again. "You're the only one who really knows anything about what happened."

Luka probably didn't want him explaining things but he does it anyways.

It makes him feel a little better, makes him feel like he did know what happen.

Luka runs her fingers along the thin hairs growing back, tracing the scar that had cut his skull open to relieve cranial pressure. "How long have you been awake?"

"Four months," Elijah answers, repeating only what he has heard other people tell him; he feels the way Luka's fingers pause in response. "I've only been conscious and functional for two months though- and I've only been successful at it for about a month." He doesn't know what else to say but he starts speaking again anyways. "I got defrosted when Haylen's team pulled me out-"

He figures people have given him the story enough times by now that he can recount it on his own.

And he figures maybe Luka wants to know the story from the start.

"Haylen?" Luka interrupts, repeats.

"Well, it's more like Paladin Danse's team-" he corrects, or at least tries to.

Luka interrupts him as she pushes herself up suddenly, just barely detangling herself from him as she does so. There's a look on her face that implies he has given her something she has been looking for, a piece to a puzzle she's been in need of.

He just doesn't know how exactly it helps.

"I need to speak with Elder Maxson," Luka repeats, a filtering look of determination overtaking her as she begins to get to her feet.

And he has seen that look before.

A subtle transition from Luka to Ghost.

Just the thought of her leaving, of her leaving his sight puts fear into him.

"Luka, it can wait-" Elijah speaks, fingers grabbing at her arm, one last reminder that she was still real.

"It can't," she insists, moving her hand to his, squeezing it, before she removes it from her arm and gets to her feet. "I have to get you off of this ship. _Now_."

Elijah has survived with the Brotherhood for this long, without incident, without reason or cause that anything they were doing was... wrong in the clearest sense. And he's not stupid to believe everyone doesn't have an underlining agenda somewhere, but he's never gotten the obvious hint of one here. The Brotherhood claims they want to protect the Commonwealth, they want to eradicate the monsters that hunt the people.

But the way Luka speaks, the way she acts...

It makes him wonder if he was missing something.

Something big.

All he has to do is see the look in her eye and he knows that Ghost is up to something.

"I'll be back," Luka promises as she steps out through the curtain. "And then we're going home."

* * *

 _"You never told me that you were a combat medic, you know."_

 _"Yeah well, you never told me that you were the Ghost either."_

* * *

Luka is gone for the handful of ten minutes maybe.

It leaves Elijah panicking of where she went, of how she is.

He doesn't leave the confines of his bed space; he doesn't want to see the rest of the Brotherhood right now- he doesn't want to see anyone else in general. He just wants to know where Luka went, he wants to know when she's coming back.

(And what did she mean that they were going home?)

He has recovered fine motor skills, he can walk, talk, still function as a basic human being. But that doesn't mean a problem won't arise, that his body is ready to handle the stress of what awaits outside and below the Prydwen. Just the thought of leaving this metal ship was frightening- the thought of the unknown outside, the two hundred year unknown was not something he was ready to face just yet.

Elijah supposes he had already cemented himself to the Brotherhood. That he would stay with them until he was fully recovered, that he would eventually join their ranks, and operate in their units. Every military unit was in need a medic so it wasn't like he was out a job or would need to be trained to not be so useless- of course he's also out of practice and out of date by a few hundred years.

But being here seemed better than being anywhere else.

At least until now.

When Luka comes back there is fire in her cheeks and in her eyes, a storm brewing still on her lips.

But there is a smile on her face as she meets his eyes.

"We're leaving," she starts. "You got anything you need to take with you? I can carry it."

"Not exactly- but where are we going?" Elijah presses as he sits up now.

"I got- I got a place," Luka answers. "It's not too far from here, it's down along the coast. It's safe, there are people, there's security."

It sounds like she's rambling.

Like she's trying to make up for something.

And it's not that he doesn't trust her, he believes every word she says but... it feels like there is something she is holding back.

Like there's something she wants, needs to say but can't figure out how to say it.

"Luka... how long have you been awake?" Elijah asks, and he wonders briefly why it's taken him this long to press for it. It could be arbitrary to do but he feels like he has to know. He has battled so long with the thought, the idea that she had woken up years, centuries before he has. And yet she's right here, looking just the same as she did before the bombs dropped.

Luka contemplates the answer. "Almost six months now," she replies.

Just two months before he was found.

It feels like both a weight has hit him and been lifted off of him.

Two months thinking he was dead, thinking she was alone in this world, fighting to get their son back- a small memory of their time together.

"I've been established here for awhile," Luka admits. "The people of the Commonwealth know me, they trust me- you could say that I own a part of it."

"Own part of it?" Elijah repeats, unsure of how to take the phrasing.

"I... can't discuss the matters here, on this ship," she assures, "but when we're on the ground, when we're safe, I'll tell you everything. I promise."

He trusts her.

He knows he can trust her.

(But it's the ' _when we're safe_ ' part that worries him.)

"Okay," Elijah nods as he starts to get to his feet now, pausing just long enough to readjust his prosthetic before he stands. "You said your place wasn't too far from here, right?"

Elijah has lived on the Prydwen for the passing of four months now.

He has never seen the world outside without being half a mile above it.

But soon enough they are both on the ground and they are walking through the hollow, shell-shocked remains of the world around them. It's dusty and it's windier than Elijah thought it would be- but it has made the ground wind-blown and smooth. It is easy enough to walk on for now.

The Prydwen, the airport is behind them.

Luka's arm is tightly linked with his own, gripping and holding on to him; she checks constantly to make sure that he's still there, that he's still with her.

And Elijah does the same.

"You know, this is gonna be kind of awkward," Luka starts as she rests her head on his shoulder now. "... I kind of told everyone that you were dead."

Elijah chuckles at the remark, at the jab.

"Yeah?" he asks.

"Yeah."


End file.
